Harvard Business Review – Women of Color Get Less Support at Work. Here’s How Managers Can Change That.

Women of color don’t need to be told to “lean in.”

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Harvard Business Review – Women of Color Get Less Support at Work. Here’s How Managers Can Change That.

Women of color don’t need to be told to “lean in.” Research shows that the vast majority of them have confidence and ambition, determination and desire.

Companies and individual managers who want to create more diverse, and ultimately more successful, teams need to do more to ensure that this motivated and diverse female talent isn’t left behind. According to Nielsen, 64% of black women in the United States agree their goal is to make it to the top of their profession, nearly double the percentage for non-Hispanic white women. Additionally, McKinsey and Leanin.org report that 83% of Asian women, 80% of black women, and 76% of Latinas say they want to be promoted, compared to 75% of men and 68% of white women in their study. With this in mind, how can leaders help the women of color on their teams advance? Zuhairah Washington and Laura Morgan Roberts detail six immediate actions for managers: taking initiative, giving yourself credit where it is due, providing honest feedback, assessing potential, and checking for bias.

Few executives have all the competencies desired for leadership roles, so it is important to widen the candidate pool by recruiting based on potential as well as past experience and qualifications. Egon Zehnder has created a model that provides organizations with a systematic and objective way to evaluate curiosity, insight, engagement and determination, the leading indicators of future competence in leadership roles.